Riding the line between amateur and hobbyist

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Pruning My Virtual Tree

So earlier today I read an incredible article about “Pruning your portfolio”. The primary point of the article is that for the most part your online photo accounts are a constant representation of the quality of work you do. As such you shouldn’t be posting every single photo you take but rather keeping only the things that are truly great. You can read the whole thing here:

The article was kind of an eye opener for me today. Primarily the part where he says:

“Don’t use this the “age old” excuse…

When I’ve talked one-on-one to photographers about this, the one persistent excuse I’ve heard is “I think potential clients would be interested to see how my work has progressed over time, and how much better I am today.” That only works for your mom. She’ll be proud of how far you’ve come. But a potential client is about to see some really cringe-worthy work from you — why would you chance that? What do you have to gain by keeping cringne-worthy pictures still up online for everybody to see? We know the downside. Where’s the upside?”

Given this epiphany, I decided to go through and clean out my flickr. It started off as a simple edit, but has since become a “delete it all and start over” kinda thing. So now you can visit my Flickr account and see only the pictures I am currently most proud of.

If you’re in a similar boat, I’d recommend you give that article a read and then do the same. It feels good. Sure I don’t have as many pictures up, but I am much happier seeing 16 really good images, than 16 good ones and 135 mediocre to bad ones.

Due to unforeseen tiredness I will cut this post short. I’ll likely get out and take some more pictures tomorrow and hopefully have some more pictures to post. In the meantime, check out my new and improved flickr: https://flickr.com/photos/earthquakephotography